This invention relates to educational applications and, more particularly, to musical educational applications for “playing-along” with a recorded musical performance. This promotes the enjoyment and appreciation of the recorded musical performance.
Utility software that allows users to create new musical works while incorporating previously recorded performances is well known. Illustrative commercially available utility software is provided, for example, by Sonar™ 2002 by Twelve Tone Systems, Inc. of 51 Melcher Street, Boston, Mass. Suitable hardware that may be used in implementing utility software such as Sonar™ 2002 may include a personal computer. This utility software allows a user to store and edit both Musical Instrument Digital Interface (“MIDI”) commands and audio signals in order to create a single new musical work.
MIDI is a specification and protocol that can be used to communicate note and effect information between an electronic instrument and a personal computer loaded with the utility software described above, for example. An electronic instrument may simply be, for example, the personal computer's keyboard when the keyboard's buttons are assigned to particular musical notes. The basic MIDI command recorded by the utility software is a “note on/off” event which comprises a note number (pitch) and a key velocity (loudness). There are various other types of values that may be included in such a command, such as lyric text information and instrument specific events. No audible sound data is actually contained in the MIDI commands. Although it may be displayed visually (as described below), in order to hear the MIDI information, the user's computer must be equipped with a MIDI output device such as a keyboard's synthesizer, a sound card with or coupled to a built in synthesizer, a stand alone MIDI synthesis module, a “drum machine,” MIDI software, or a combination thereof, for example.
Audio signals (i.e., “sounds”), on the other hand, are produced when a vibrating object excites air molecules in such a way to form coherent waves or a series of pressure gradients which may impinge on the eardrum. Using an audio signal musical input device, such as a transducer (i.e., a microphone), analog audio signals (or “sound waves”) may be sampled by the utility software and stored as digital information on the computer. When this sort of information is stored in the user's computer, it may be referred to as digital audio. An example of an audio signal that may be stored by the user with the utility software described above is the performance of a singer. A microphone may convert the air pressure changes caused by the vibrations of the singer's vocal chords into voltage changes. These voltage changes may then be sampled and stored by the utility software onto the user's computer. The utility software stores this musical (i.e., audio) performance of the singer as digital audio rather than MIDI information. Moreover, previously recorded digital audio may be transferred from a compact disc (“CD”) and stored by the utility software onto the user's computer through a “direct” line-in signal input device, for example, as opposed to a microphone.
Therefore, utility software may act as an audio and MIDI sequencer, allowing a user to piece together a new musical work with both MIDI component tracks and audio signal tracks (such as recorded vocals or guitar) that are both controlled by one internal clock source. Such software may provide various aural and visual representations of the tracks which better allow a user to edit and playback specific aspects of his or her composition. For example, MIDI information may be displayed as notation in staff view, guitar fret view, or as an event list, while digital audio information may be viewed as a continuous graph of the audio signal's amplitude over time. Furthermore, the MIDI information and digital audio information may be heard at various volumes, tempos, and pitches, for example.
However, because the tempo often varies during the real performance, there is no satisfactory application supported by such utility software that provides tools to assist and guide a user through the steps of creating, editing, and playing back enhancements to a recorded performance of an original artist in such a way that promotes the enjoyment and appreciation of the recorded performance. As a result, many people who have access to the type of utility software described above do not use it in their efforts to enjoy and learn how to play an original artist's recorded performance.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a music application that guides a user through the steps of creating and editing visual and aural musical enhancements that play in synchronicity with a recorded performance of an original artist, and that prompts the user to “play-along” with the musical enhancements to promote the enjoyment and appreciation of the original artist's recorded performance without requiring possession of the performance itself, but that allows for playback in synchronicity with the recorded performance if he or she possesses it.